


every part aflame ; this is not a game

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 05:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5730388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's talk around the base that couples have been roleplaying 'the pilot and the stormtrooper' to spice up their sex life. Poe's not too keen on it, but can't really avoid it when Jessika brings it up over drinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every part aflame ; this is not a game

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of [this](http://tfa-kink.dreamwidth.org/1082.html?thread=97082) prompt. Also, feel free to come find me on [tumblr](http://brandanoquits.tumblr.com) and chat!

“Okay,” Jess says suddenly. Her glass had been up at her mouth, but she’d brought it down against the table when whatever thought she’d just had struck her. Poe’s got no idea what’s about to come out of her mouth, but he sure as hell doesn’t like the look on her face. Warily, he puts his own glass down, watching her closely.

Finn and Rey, opposite he and Jess, are blissfully unaware of Jessika’s personality quirks. They have no idea that whatever happens next will probably be trouble. They’re smiling, eager to hear where the conversation will take them and ready to follow it every step of the way. Rey’s smile is probably the most beautiful thing Poe’s ever seen, so not that he really minds it. Her cheeks are red and she and Finn keep bumping each other with their shoulders affectionately as they speak. It’s straight up adorable, really, and Jessika’s gonna ruin it, Poe can just feel it.

“I have to bring up the bantha in the room,” she continues, once she’s satisfied that everybody’s listening. And Poe feels his stomach drop to the floor. He knows _exactly_ where this is going.

“You don’t _have_ to do anything,” he grumbles. He literally feels like sliding off his chair onto the floor and just spending the rest of the evening there.

Across the table, Finn pulls his eyebrows together.

“Bantha?” Rey asks, putting her elbows up on the table and leaning forward. And of course, a scavenger from Jakku who spent most of her time growing up alone hasn’t heard all the idioms that exist in the galaxy. She looks from Jess to Finn, the ex-Stormtrooper, who merely shrugs in response, and then back to Jess. “What does that even mean?”

“It’s just a phrase,” Jess says, waving her hand dismissively. “Like, something you can’t ignore, you know?”

“Oh,” Finn says, nodding. “So it walks in and immediately you’re like, oh,” he points vaguely across the room, “there it is.”

“It doesn’t _literally_ walk in,” Poe mutters, taking a drink, hardly believing that he’s having this conversation.

“Anyway!” Jess starts again. “I can’t believe this came up!”

“You brought it up,” Poe points out, sounding everything like the old man he is compared to these guys.

“What is it?” Rey asks. Jess looks to Finn, who’s just about as confused as Rey is. Clearly, he hasn’t heard this rumour that’s been circulating the base and Poe would much rather keep it that way, but he’s a strategist and he knows three against one doesn’t give him very good odds. So he consigns.

“You can’t tell me you don’t know,” she says to Finn, jutting her chin out towards him. He shrugs, but he’s leaning forward now too, completely enraptured.

“Why would anybody tell _him_?” Poe asks, nudging Jess as a warning.

“What are people saying about him?” Rey asks, immediately putting the pieces together. Her expression’s gotten a little fierce and protective.

“Nothing bad,” Poe says, knowing she needs assurance and needs it from him. And then, correcting himself: “It’s not even _really_ about him.”

“People have been roleplaying a pilot and the Stormtrooper,” Jess finally says.

And, there it is: out in the open. Nothing Poe can do about it now, so he just drops his chin down towards his chest and sighs. Rey’s mouth hangs slightly open; clearly, she’s been spending too much time with Jess because she knows exactly what roleplaying entails and _why_ people might be doing it, but Finn, bless his heart, just still looks confused.

“What?” Both Rey and Finn say, but they’re asking two very separate questions in two separate tones.

“I said: people are roleplaying--” Jess repeats.

“No, no, I heard you,” Finn says, interrupting her.

“Then what are you asking?” Poe watches the realization dawn on her: Finn’s either so vanilla or so inexperienced that he doesn’t know what roleplaying is. And why should he? No way there was a crash course on it in the Order.

Her eyes light up and she leans towards Finn, but Poe reaches out, grabs her shoulder before she can say anything: “Can we not do this?” He feels Finn’s eyes on him, but can’t bring himself to look up. He suddenly realizes just how mortifying this whole thing is: people are getting off to he and Finn’s own meet-cute. Except, it hadn’t been cute. It hadn’t been a game.

“People are pretending to be us?” Finn continues, ignoring Poe’s attempt at cutting off the conversation where it lies. Before he can try to just fucking divert, divert, divert, _Rey’s_ now answering him, blushing wildly. She puts her hand on Finn’s shoulder and covers her smile with the other. “In bed,” she says, softly enough that Poe knows it’s meant to be just for Finn, but he hears it all the same, and he just fuckin’ deflates. He doesn’t mean to actually groan, but he does, and he leans back in his seat.

When he finally looks up at Finn, the guy’s actually smiling and that… Well, that hadn’t been what Poe was expecting. This is different and maybe a little interesting. Poe leans forward in his seat, watches Finn turn to Rey who’s still smiling too and he wonders, since he’s the only one at the table _not_ smiling, that maybe he should just get a grip.

“That’s sort of badass,” Finn says and then he turns to Poe, still smiling, and shrugs. Poe smiles back, tries to really mean it, but probably fails. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“Yeah,” Poe says through a self-deprecating laugh. He downs whatever’s left in his glass and then starts to get up. “Be right back,” he mutters.

“Are you alright?” Rey asks, her eyes following him, up from his seat, past her and towards the bar. He gives her a nod, a probably belligerently fake smile, and a theatrical thumbs-up before he takes a turn and heads to the bathroom instead of the bar.

He pushes through the swinging door and sets himself up right in front of the mirror, his hands on the white sink. He looks up at his own reflection and decides blearily that he should just fucking go to bed. It feels like it’s been a long night, even though he knows it hasn’t.

The fact that couples around the base were roleplaying him and Finn had gotten around to him a few times. Mostly, he’d laughed it off, telling anyone he spoke to that it was pretty ridiculous, but to each their own. Nothing wrong with trying to spice up a sex life, not at all, it was just bizarre to be a part of it. And for the most part, he’d left his own emotional reaction at that: it was bizarre, but truth be told, it was a little more than that. It didn’t sit quite right with him. This moment between him and Finn had been exhilirating, sure, but also fucking terrible and terrifying and had led to that crash on Jakku where he’d thought that he literally lost everything: BB-8, his position in the Resistance, and Finn…

He scrapes his palm down over his mouth and then, behind him, the door’s opening so he straightens up, reaches out to turn on the sink and tries to act as casual as possible. He sneaks one glance up at whoever’s walked in and pauses: Finn; the last person he wants to see right now.

“Hey,” he says, nodding, going for nonchalance, but definitely failing.

Finn’s got his hands on his hips and he’s watching Poe’s reflection closely. He feels scrutinized, feels totally vulnerable and just wants to open his mouth; fill this silence with absolutely anything at this point. But before he opens his mouth, Finn steps towards him.

“What’s up with you?” he asks. He sidles up next to Poe, crosses his arms over his chest and leans his hip against the sink. When Poe doesn’t immediately answer, he feels Finn looking for the answer for himself. Poe wonders how much of that skill--reading and detecting lies--he’d learned from the First Order. It feels a little too much like an interrogation for Poe’s liking. He sidesteps Finn and grabs some paper towel. He hears Finn’s scuff the floor as he follows him.

“Nothing,” Poe says.

“Why are you upset?” Finn continues; Poe can feel him leaning towards him.

“I’m not,” he quickly defends, but he can hear his own indignance and petulance so he knows Finn ain’t buying it. If it were possible for Finn to physically roll his eyes any more, he’d definitely be doing it right about now.

“Is it offensive?” Finn asks. “That people are doing this?” And he’s not making fun of Poe’s reaction, he’s just honestly curious, wondering if maybe he’s read the situation wrong and that just makes Poe even more miserable; he doesn’t want to bring any of his negative shit down on Finn.

“No,” Poe says through a sigh. He pinches the bridge of his nose and inwardly deflates, wondering how in the Hell he’s going to explain what it is, exactly, if not offensive. ‘Cause it really isn’t. It really, honestly isn’t. “It’s just-...” He’s in the middle of figuring out how to articulate this when somebody else walks in the door, and even though they’re in a public place, it feels like an invasion. Poe straightens up his posture and minutely steps away from Finn and the guy’s expression just says it all: he’s smiling coyly, almost obnoxiously, like he just walked in on them making out instead of just talking and it makes Poe hate the fact that the base is talking about him--him and Finn--even more. The guy steps back, mumbling knowing apologies, and Poe can’t stand it another second. And Finn just takes it in stride, hardly acknowledges the guy leaving. Poe sighs and decides that he doesn’t like the way that people are using the way he and Finn met because: “It’s just private,” he says.

“Okay,” Finn says, like that’s supposed to settle anything. “So what? We ask people to stop?”

“No,” Poe answers quickly and he hates how short-tempered he sounds. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. “No,” he says again, calmer this time. “Anything but that.” He laughs meekly, looks up at Finn, and sees just how seriously he’s taking this conversation. And he shouldn’t be. Not really. Poe knows he’s blowing the whole thing out of proportion and Finn’s just too damn worried to see that. So he waves his hand dismissively: “It’ll blow over.” And when it looks like Finn won’t let it go, he adds: “Really.”

“Okay,” Finn says again.

Poe nods in response, feeling the definitiveness of the ending of their conversation. Finn starts to turn, about ready to head back to their table, before he stops and turns back to Poe. He’s smiling and even though Poe’s got no idea what he’s about to say, he smiles too. “You know,” Finn starts. “They’re not far off. I could have kissed you when you told me you can fly anything.”

Poe laughs, one genuine and hearty laugh before he looks down at his feet, nodding to himself. “Yeah,” he mutters. He looks up and Finn’s still smiling at him so he gives him a soft push to the chest. “I don’t blame you. I looked pretty good.”

“You looked like hell,” Finn responds, before he laces his arm around Poe’s shoulders and starts to guide him back out into the smoky bar area. And for the first time, Poe doesn’t think about where in the First Order Finn got his habits, but instead, he thinks that maybe, Finn learned this sort of thing from him.


End file.
